[4] Hennessy's performances are embedded in leftist and anarchist social movements; his career began in anti-nuclear juggling, acrobatics, and vaudevillian comedy.
[5][6][7] He was influenced by and has worked with Lucas Hoving, Gulko, Ishmael Houston-Jones and Patrick Scully, Terry Sendgraff, Karen Finley, Joseph Kramer, the collective CORE (Jess Curtis, Stanya Kahn, Jules Beckman, Stephanie Maher, Hennessy), and Contraband, a company directed by Sara Shelton Mann.
[8] His work also developed from his participation in social and political activism inspired by Direct Action to Stop the War, Critical Resistance, ACT UP and Queer Nation.
In San Francisco Hennessy's work has been presented at numerous venues including Dance Mission, Theater Artaud,[9] Mama Calizo's Voice Factory and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
[10] In one early San Francisco work, Religare, by Contraband, he danced in the dirt in the ruins of a Mission district single-room-occupancy building that was burned down by the owner/landlord.